June 10, 2014

Michelle Noell helps adjust the toy racing headset for Ja'Siah Thornton Daniels, 5 and a pre-kindergarten student from Duke Ellington at Beckham school in Detroit. Lots of kids came to the PNC Bank Grow Up Great and Fifth Gear Education Day for various Detroit public schools on at the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix on Thursday morning May 28, 2014. Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

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Detroit Public Schools announced Monday that it plans to continue expanding its early childhood education programs, adding more than 540 seats in 34 new classrooms for the 2014-2015 school year.

The expansion comes, officials say, even as the district lost out on federal Head Start funding for next year because it missed an application deadline.

DPS officials blamed the problem on a technical glitch. The district will still be able to expand early childhood programs under funding from other state and federal sources, they said.

District officials said Monday that new pre-kindergarten programs are being planned for Chrysler and Nichols elementary schools. The Beard Early Childhood Education Center will also host classes.

“Research clearly shows that providing children with early childhood education programs is essential to their personal growth and future academic success,” the district’s emergency manager, Jack Martin, said in a news release. “DPS remains committed to providing these critical programs to as many Detroit children as possible.”

The early childhood offerings will be expanded through state-funded Great Start Readiness and federal Title I pre-kindergarten programs, but the district won’t be involved in Head Start next year, the release said.

The Head Start program helps children up to age 5 from low-income families get prepared for school. About two months ago, DPS said in a draft deficit elimination plan that it gave to the Michigan Department of Education that it missed the Head Start application deadline.

The document showed $4.8 million in Head Start revenues budgeted for the 2013-2014 school year, but none projected for 2014-2015. DPS expects to receive more than $4 million in Head Start funding for the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

The plan said, “Personnel costs are expected to decline $2.9 million (65 FTEs) because DPS will not receive Head Start funding in FY 2015. The district did not submit the Head Start application in time to receive FY 2015 funding. Head Start expenses will be covered by Title I.”

It noted that the Great Start Readiness progam allocation increased by $6 million in the 2014 fiscal year.

In an e-mail sent to the Free Press late Monday, district spokeswoman Michelle Zdrodowski said she expects that all pre-K teachers working now in Head Start-funded classrooms will be absorbed as part of the expansion of Great Start Readiness and Title I-funded classrooms.

She said the district has been a Head Start grantee for decades, but decided last year to apply to be a direct delegate of Head Start funds. The district did a trial run, she said, but when the application was due, it ran into technical problems.

“DPS completed its application, and on the day of the submission deadline the team encountered technical difficulties with uploading the information and sought assistance from a technical advisor at Grants.Gov (the portal through which the grant was to be uploaded),” she wrote. “A trouble ticket was issued further documenting the challenge. However, due to this technical difficulty the application was not able to be submitted on time (which we were notified of the morning after the submission deadline had passed).”

The Head Start program is administered by the Office of Head Start in the Administration for Children & Families, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.

The news release from DPS said any child who would qualify for a Head Start program will also be eligible to qualify for either the Great Start Readiness or Title I Pre-K programs, or both.

In recent months, the district has projected that it will end this fiscal year in June with a $120.3-million deficit.

More than 3,300 children are enrolled in DPS early childhood programs in the 2013-14 school year, Zdrodowski said.

Parents interested in finding out more about the district’s early childhood education programs can call the district’s Foundation for Early Learners at 313-347-8923.